When Thérèse M’Boungoubaya set out to launch her bodycare brand Koba, she knew she wanted it to be rooted in natural, African-sourced ingredients — a nod to her Congolese roots (both her parents were born in the Congo, though she was raised in France and now lives in the UK). Her mother, a chemist, suggested safou — known for its powerful anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. In Congolese society, it’s typically used in cooking, not cosmetics.

The purple fruit grows on trees with glossy, green leaves, which are abundant in the Congo. M’Boungoubaya launched Koba in 2020, but could only find one supplier in Cameroon capable of undertaking the extraction process required to make safou oil suitable for cosmetic formulation. Seeds from the safou fruit must be processed by hand, ensuring traceability and preserving purity, but limiting scalability and overall output — a common hurdle for brands that work with smaller networks of suppliers, rather than industrial ones. With her father, M’Boungoubaya decided to buy land to grow and process the oil themselves.